48th Arkansas General Assembly
term of state legislature in Arkansas, US
The Forty-Eighth Arkansas General Assembly was the legislative body of the state of Arkansas in 1931 and 1932. In this General Assembly, the Arkansas Senate and Arkansas House of Representatives were both controlled by the Democrats. In the Senate, all 35 senators were Democrats, and in the House, 99 representatives were Democrats, with one Republican. It was the first General Assembly to use redistricted legislative districts from the 1930 United States census.
Major events
Vacancies
Senator Granville Jones (D-31st) died, replaced by L. Walter Wheatley by election
Representative William U. McCabe (D-Baxter County) died, no record of a successor being elected or appointed
Representative S. A. Turner (D-Cleburne County) died, no record of a successor being elected or appointed
Appointments
Senator R. E. Spence is appointed to the 1st Senatorial District due to the resignation of his father, W. E. Spence.
Legislative summary
The 48th General Assembly generally dealt with routine matters. They created the county highway fund and abolished the elected office of Arkansas State Superintendent of Public Instruction, converting the office to the Arkansas Commissioner of Education, which was appointed by the Arkansas Board of Education.
Governor Parnell sought approval from the legislature to send a government reorganization plan to the voters. The plan would have reduced all state elections to once every four years, with only the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general remaining as elected officials and reorganizing the executive branch into twelve departments. The plan was viewed as an increase in the governor's power and never gained traction with the legislature.
“48th Arkansas General Assembly” enters the record as term of state legislature in Arkansas, US. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what 48th, Arkansas and General can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“48th Arkansas General Assembly” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, 48th, Arkansas and General provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48864814. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1932 and 1930.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “48th Arkansas General Assembly”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 48th Arkansas General Assembly primary sources, 48th Arkansas General Assembly archive and 48th research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “48th Arkansas General Assembly”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “48th Arkansas General Assembly” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.